PVMOVE(8) System Manager's Manual PVMOVE(8)
NAME
pvmove — Move extents from one physical volume to another
SYNOPSIS
pvmove position_args
[ option_args ]
[ position_args ]
DESCRIPTION
pvmove moves the allocated physical extents (PEs) on a source PV to one
or more destination PVs. You can optionally specify a source LV in
which case only extents used by that LV will be moved to free (or spec-
ified) extents on the destination PV. If no destination PV is speci-
fied, the normal allocation rules for the VG are used.
If pvmove is interrupted for any reason (e.g. the machine crashes) then
run pvmove again without any PV arguments to restart any operations
that were in progress from the last checkpoint. Alternatively, use the
abort option at any time to abort the operation. The resulting location
of LVs after an abort depends on whether the atomic option was used.
More than one pvmove can run concurrently if they are moving data from
different source PVs, but additional pvmoves will ignore any LVs al-
ready in the process of being changed, so some data might not get
moved.
USAGE
Move PV extents.
pvmove PV
[ -A|--autobackup y|n ]
[ -n|--name LV ]
[ --alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
]
[ --atomic ]
[ --noudevsync ]
[ --reportformat basic|json ]
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
[ PV ... ]
Continue or abort existing pvmove operations.
pvmove
[ COMMON_OPTIONS ]
Common options for command:
[ -b|--background ]
[ -i|--interval Number ]
[ --abort ]
Common options for lvm:
[ -d|--debug ]
[ -h|--help ]
[ -q|--quiet ]
[ -t|--test ]
[ -v|--verbose ]
[ -y|--yes ]
[ --commandprofile String ]
[ --config String ]
[ --devices PV ]
[ --devicesfile String ]
[ --driverloaded y|n ]
[ --journal String ]
[ --lockopt String ]
[ --longhelp ]
[ --nohints ]
[ --nolocking ]
[ --profile String ]
[ --version ]
OPTIONS
--abort
Abort any pvmove operations in progress. If a pvmove was started
with the --atomic option, then all LVs will remain on the source
PV. Otherwise, segments that have been moved will remain on the
destination PV, while unmoved segments will remain on the source
PV.
--alloc contiguous|cling|cling_by_tags|normal|anywhere|inherit
Determines the allocation policy when a command needs to allo-
cate Physical Extents (PEs) from the VG. Each VG and LV has an
allocation policy which can be changed with vgchange/lvchange,
or overridden on the command line. normal applies common sense
rules such as not placing parallel stripes on the same PV. in-
herit applies the VG policy to an LV. contiguous requires new
PEs be placed adjacent to existing PEs. cling places new PEs on
the same PV as existing PEs in the same stripe of the LV. If
there are sufficient PEs for an allocation, but normal does not
use them, anywhere will use them even if it reduces performance,
e.g. by placing two stripes on the same PV. Optional positional
PV args on the command line can also be used to limit which PVs
the command will use for allocation. See lvm(8) for more infor-
mation about allocation.
--atomic
Makes a pvmove operation atomic, ensuring that all affected LVs
are moved to the destination PV, or none are if the operation is
aborted.
-A|--autobackup y|n
Specifies if metadata should be backed up automatically after a
change. Enabling this is strongly advised! See vgcfgbackup(8)
for more information.
-b|--background
If the operation requires polling, this option causes the com-
mand to return before the operation is complete, and polling is
done in the background.
--commandprofile String
The command profile to use for command configuration. See
lvm.conf(5) for more information about profiles.
--config String
Config settings for the command. These override lvm.conf(5) set-
tings. The String arg uses the same format as lvm.conf(5), or
may use section/field syntax. See lvm.conf(5) for more informa-
tion about config.
-d|--debug ...
Set debug level. Repeat from 1 to 6 times to increase the detail
of messages sent to the log file and/or syslog (if configured).
--devices PV
Restricts the devices that are visible and accessible to the
command. Devices not listed will appear to be missing. This op-
tion can be repeated, or accepts a comma separated list of de-
vices. This overrides the devices file.
--devicesfile String
A file listing devices that LVM should use. The file must exist
in /etc/lvm/devices/ and is managed with the lvmdevices(8) com-
mand. This overrides the lvm.conf(5) devices/devicesfile and
devices/use_devicesfile settings.
--driverloaded y|n
If set to no, the command will not attempt to use device-mapper.
For testing and debugging.
-h|--help
Display help text.
-i|--interval Number
Report progress at regular intervals.
--journal String
Record information in the systemd journal. This information is
in addition to information enabled by the lvm.conf log/journal
setting. command: record information about the command. out-
put: record the default command output. debug: record full com-
mand debugging.
--lockopt String
Used to pass options for special cases to lvmlockd. See lvm-
lockd(8) for more information.
--longhelp
Display long help text.
-n|--name String
Move only the extents belonging to the named LV.
--nohints
Do not use the hints file to locate devices for PVs. A command
may read more devices to find PVs when hints are not used. The
command will still perform standard hint file invalidation where
appropriate.
--nolocking
Disable locking. Use with caution, concurrent commands may pro-
duce incorrect results.
--noudevsync
Disables udev synchronisation. The process will not wait for no-
tification from udev. It will continue irrespective of any pos-
sible udev processing in the background. Only use this if udev
is not running or has rules that ignore the devices LVM creates.
--profile String
An alias for --commandprofile or --metadataprofile, depending on
the command.
-q|--quiet ...
Suppress output and log messages. Overrides --debug and --ver-
bose. Repeat once to also suppress any prompts with answer
'no'.
--reportformat basic|json
Overrides current output format for reports which is defined
globally by the report/output_format setting in lvm.conf(5).
basic is the original format with columns and rows. If there is
more than one report per command, each report is prefixed with
the report name for identification. json produces report output
in JSON format. See lvmreport(7) for more information.
-t|--test
Run in test mode. Commands will not update metadata. This is
implemented by disabling all metadata writing but nevertheless
returning success to the calling function. This may lead to un-
usual error messages in multi-stage operations if a tool relies
on reading back metadata it believes has changed but hasn't.
-v|--verbose ...
Set verbose level. Repeat from 1 to 4 times to increase the de-
tail of messages sent to stdout and stderr.
--version
Display version information.
-y|--yes
Do not prompt for confirmation interactively but always assume
the answer yes. Use with extreme caution. (For automatic no,
see -qq.)
VARIABLES
PV Physical Volume name, a device path under /dev. For commands
managing physical extents, a PV positional arg generally accepts
a suffix indicating a range (or multiple ranges) of physical ex-
tents (PEs). When the first PE is omitted, it defaults to the
start of the device, and when the last PE is omitted it defaults
to end. Start and end range (inclusive): PV[:PE-PE]... Start
and length range (counting from 0): PV[:PE+PE]...
String See the option description for information about the string con-
tent.
Size[UNIT]
Size is an input number that accepts an optional unit. Input
units are always treated as base two values, regardless of capi-
talization, e.g. 'k' and 'K' both refer to 1024. The default
input unit is specified by letter, followed by |UNIT. UNIT rep-
resents other possible input units: b|B is bytes, s|S is sectors
of 512 bytes, k|K is KiB, m|M is MiB, g|G is GiB, t|T is TiB,
p|P is PiB, e|E is EiB. (This should not be confused with the
output control --units, where capital letters mean multiple of
1000.)
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See lvm(8) for information about environment variables used by lvm.
For example, LVM_VG_NAME can generally be substituted for a required VG
parameter.
NOTES
pvmove works as follows:
1. A temporary 'pvmove' LV is created to store details of all the data
movements required.
2. Every LV in the VG is searched for contiguous data that need moving
according to the command line arguments. For each piece of data found,
a new segment is added to the end of the pvmove LV. This segment takes
the form of a temporary mirror to copy the data from the original loca-
tion to a newly allocated location. The original LV is updated to use
the new temporary mirror segment in the pvmove LV instead of accessing
the data directly.
3. The VG metadata is updated on disk.
4. The first segment of the pvmove LV is activated and starts to mirror
the first part of the data. Only one segment is mirrored at once as
this is usually more efficient.
5. A daemon repeatedly checks progress at the specified time interval.
When it detects that the first temporary mirror is in sync, it breaks
that mirror so that only the new location for that data gets used and
writes a checkpoint into the VG metadata on disk. Then it activates
the mirror for the next segment of the pvmove LV.
6. When there are no more segments left to be mirrored, the temporary
LV is removed and the VG metadata is updated so that the LVs reflect
the new data locations.
Note that this new process cannot support the original LVM1 type of on-
disk metadata. Metadata can be converted using vgconvert(8).
If the --atomic option is used, a slightly different approach is used
for the move. Again, a temporary 'pvmove' LV is created to store the
details of all the data movements required. This temporary LV contains
all the segments of the various LVs that need to be moved. However, in
this case, an identical LV is allocated that contains the same number
of segments and a mirror is created to copy the contents from the first
temporary LV to the second. After a complete copy is made, the tempo-
rary LVs are removed, leaving behind the segments on the destination
PV. If an abort is issued during the move, all LVs being moved will
remain on the source PV.
EXAMPLES
Move all physical extents that are used by simple LVs on the specified
PV to free physical extents elsewhere in the VG.
pvmove /dev/sdb1
Use a specific destination PV when moving physical extents.
pvmove /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1
Move extents belonging to a single LV.
pvmove -n lvol1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1
Rather than moving the contents of an entire device, it is possible to
move a range of physical extents, for example numbers 1000 to 1999 in-
clusive on the specified PV.
pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999
A range of physical extents to move can be specified as start+length.
For example, starting from PE 1000. (Counting starts from 0, so this
refers to the 1001st to the 2000th PE inclusive.)
pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000+1000
Move a range of physical extents to a specific PV (which must have suf-
ficient free extents).
pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1
Move a range of physical extents to specific new extents on a new PV.
pvmove /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1:0-999
If the source and destination are on the same disk, the anywhere allo-
cation policy is needed.
pvmove --alloc anywhere /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdb1:0-999
The part of a specific LV present within in a range of physical extents
can also be picked out and moved.
pvmove -n lvol1 /dev/sdb1:1000-1999 /dev/sdc1
SEE ALSO
lvm(8), lvm.conf(5), lvmconfig(8), lvmdevices(8),
pvchange(8), pvck(8), pvcreate(8), pvdisplay(8), pvmove(8),
pvremove(8), pvresize(8), pvs(8), pvscan(8),
vgcfgbackup(8), vgcfgrestore(8), vgchange(8), vgck(8), vgcreate(8),
vgconvert(8), vgdisplay(8), vgexport(8), vgextend(8), vgimport(8),
vgimportclone(8), vgimportdevices(8), vgmerge(8), vgmknodes(8),
vgreduce(8), vgremove(8), vgrename(8), vgs(8), vgscan(8), vgsplit(8),
lvcreate(8), lvchange(8), lvconvert(8), lvdisplay(8), lvextend(8),
lvreduce(8), lvremove(8), lvrename(8), lvresize(8), lvs(8), lvscan(8),
lvm-fullreport(8), lvm-lvpoll(8), blkdeactivate(8), lvmdump(8),
dmeventd(8), lvmpolld(8), lvmlockd(8), lvmlockctl(8), cmirrord(8),
lvmdbusd(8), fsadm(8),
lvmsystemid(7), lvmreport(7), lvmraid(7), lvmthin(7), lvmcache(7)
Red Hat, Inc. LVM TOOLS 2.03.16(2) (2022-05-18) PVMOVE(8)
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